July, 1913. Notes on Turquois. 27 



In the Old History of the T'ang Dynasty (Kiu T'ang shu, Ch. 198, 

 p. II b), a description of the country Fu-lin (Syria) is given, whose great 

 wealth in precious stones is emphasized. In the palaces, it is said there, 

 the pillars are made of se-se} It is difficult to see, if se-se should have 

 to be identified with the turquois, how pillars could be made of this 

 material. The Chinese text does not say that the pillars were adorned 

 or inlaid with this stone but produced from it. 



A fourth passage in the T'ang shu (Ch. 221 a, p. lob) referring to 

 se-se is contained in an account of Khotan (Yu lien). Emperor Te- 

 tsung (780-805) despatched an emissary, Chu Ju-yii by name, to 

 Khotan on the search for jade, and he obtained there a hundred pounds 

 (catties) of se-se} This notice is of great interest in showing that the 

 precious stones of this name were really imported into China, and that 

 the mart for them was Khotan. 



There are, however, still earlier references to the jewel s^-se. It is 

 for the first time mentioned in the Pei shi (Ch. 97, pp. 7 b, 12 a) and in 

 the ''Annals of the Sui Dynasty" ' {Sui shu, Ch. 83, containing a record 

 of the foreign countries then known to the Chinese). Both histories 



were gathered in the circuit of Hui-ch'uan in Yiin-nan Province; my friend Prof. 

 Paul Pelliot was good enough to draw my attention to this passage. Another pas- 

 sage alludes to a gift of a thousand turquoises sent from Hui-ch'uan in 1284 {Kitir 

 Ving se wen hien t'ung k'ao, Ch. 23, p. 7). But it seems likely from what will be stated 

 farther on in regard to the first acquaintance of the Cliinese with the turquois in the 

 Mongol period that the turquois mines of Yiin-nan were opened only shortly before 

 this time. At any rate I am not inclined to transfer this account without reserve to 

 the date 794, nor to believe in the identity of the different terms se-si and pi tien-tse. 

 While I should merely admit the possibility of such an identification, another histori- 

 cal explanation of the case may be pointed out. In the eighth century, the T'ai or 

 Shan, the stock of peoples forming the kingdom of Nan-chao, were in close political 

 alliance with the Tibetans who had then reached the zenith of their power. It would 

 therefore be justifiable to conclude that the se-se of Nan-chao were derived from Tibet 

 and are to be identified with the ancient Tibetan se-se, which, as will be shown here- 

 after, may be the emerald. In the T'ang shu (Ch. 222 a, p. 2 a), the women of the 

 Southern Man, the large stock of aboriginal tribes formerly spread over the whole of 

 southern China, are said to fasten in their hair beads, shells, se-.st, and amber. In 

 this case it is rather tempting at first sight to interpret se-se as turquois, because this 

 combination of turquois and amber, as pointed out before, occurs indeed among the 

 Tibetan group of tribes. But the Man do not belong to the Tibetan family, and 

 another difificulty is presented by the fact that there are no records either of ancient 

 or modern times pointing to the employment of the turquois among any tribe of the 

 Man, so that it is safer to assume that the turquois is not understood in the above 

 text. 



' HiRTH, China and the Roman Orient, p. 53. At that time (1885) Hirth had 

 not advanced any identification of this term. 



* He embezzled the jade objects destined for the emperor, was sentenced, and 

 died in exile (Chavannes, Documents, p. 128, note 2). 



' The Pei shi, " Northern Annals," was written by Li Yen-shou (Giles, Biographi- 

 cal Dictionary, p. 474) and completed about the year 644; it comprises the history of 

 the dynasties of the north ruling from 386 to 618. The Sui dynasty ruled from 589 

 to 618. The Sui shu was composed by Wei Ch&ng (581-643; Giles, I. c, p. 856) 

 under the T'ang dynasty and completed in 636. 



